UPDATE: Petty Power Trips at Dulles Airport

By consumerist.comJuly 20, 2006

Last month, we wrote about crazy, wild-eyed technohippy Edward Hasbrouck’s harassment by power-tripping rent-a-cops employed by the TSA. He’s followed it up with a complete copy of his dialogue with TSA officials subsequent to the entire ridiculous fiasco.

Essentially, they give his privacy concerns the brush-off, drawing the conclusion that because Ed showed his passport to the airline at check-in, he must be willing to show his passport to every random guy with a power-trip who wanders along. That doesn’t explain the tenuous legality of glorified security cops pretending to be official TSA agents, or the fact that the cops were called when Hasbrouck started asking for a clear explanation of his rights from an official… is that a crime now?

One thing we can’t help but noting: Ed is a bit anal retentive and obsequiously polite. That’s grating even as a reader and I suspect his habit of endlessly quoting people and cross-referencing previous comments actually muddle communication, as opposed to otherwise. That’s not to say he’s in any way to blame: he isn’t. But his message could sure as hell be a lot clearer through tersity.